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Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy,-
Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!
O, struggling with darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars!
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, O, awake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars in the earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain,-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amidst their maddest plunge.
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon?

Clothe you with rainbows?

flowers

Who bade the sun

Who with living

Of loveliest blue, garlands at your feet?
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye livery flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild-goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements !

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure

serene,

Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-rise, O, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

AN ORISON OF EDEN.

BY MILTON.

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these Heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell ye sons of light,-
Angels,-for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,

Circle his throne rojoicing; ye in Heaven,
On earth, join all ye creatures to extol
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling norn With thy bright circlet, praise him in the sphere, While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.

Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou
fall'st.

Moon, that now meets the orient sun, now fly'st
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies,
And ye five other wondering fires that move
In mystic dance, not without song resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth
Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix,

And nourish all things, let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye Mists and Exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray
Till the sun point your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author, rise,
Whether to deck with clouds the uncoloured sky.
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.

His praise, ye Winds that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye Pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices all, ye living souls; ye Birds,
That singing up to Heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings, and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep,
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,

To hill, or valley, fountain, or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and, if the night
Have gathered aught of evil or concealed,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

THE LOVE OF GOD.

BY MILMAN.

I.

LOVE Thee!-oh, Thou, the world's eternal Sire!

Whose palace is the vast infinity;

Time, space, height, depth, oh, God! are full of

Thee,

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